When one gets to be of a certain age, he or she spends more and more time reminiscing about what was, appreciating what is, and how much longer one may get to be. If one is fortunate – and I am definitely one of the fortunate ones – he or she will come to realize that the fond memories of the past and the joys of the present are sufficient to stave off worries about what may come and in what form it might assume. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am an optimist, and I have plenty of reasons to be that way.

After 17 years of working a job whose stresses I hated, I’ve spent the last 17 doing what I know I was put on this earth to do: Being a full-time “boxing person.” Ever since I saw my first fight on TV – Roberto Duran’s second meeting with Esteban DeJesus on March 16, 1974 – I knew what I wanted to do with my life professionally. Given that I come from a town in rural West Virginia so tiny that it wasn’t included on many maps, this goal seemed like an impossible dream, especially since I had no idea about how to make it happen. But thanks to a combination of ambition, initiative, faith and God-granted talent that I strove to develop, I had the confidence to approach, then convince, those who were empowered to make my aspirations come true to actually apply that power. Most importantly, when it came time for me to prove myself to those dream-makers once they opened those doors, I showed them beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was worth the risk.

As a result, I have produced a professional boxing life that has unfolded in two distinctive parts. The first began at age 22 when Ring magazine published my first fight report in the “Rings Around the World” section, and it reached its initial peak the following year when I penned my first feature in the December 1988 issue. Circumstances beyond my control ended this phase a few years later, but during the decade-plus I was on the sidelines, I never lost hope that I could somehow resurrect the dream.

Believe it or not, that resurrection was sparked by a joking remark by Max Kellerman inside ESPN’s “Friday Night Fights” studio regarding the boxing website MaxBoxing.com (“and yes, the website is not devoted entirely to me”), and the rest is history: Stints at MaxBoxing.com, BoxingScene.com and, since 2011, RingTV.com, stints that have resulted in 22 writing awards, including two firsts, from the Boxing Writers Association of America; a full-time gig as the chief researcher for CompuBox, Inc.; the author of two books, the copyeditor of several others, and a fact-checker for “The Fight Game With Jim Lampley.” Additionally, in October 2020 I became a regular panelist on “In This Corner: The Podcast” with host James “Smitty” Smith – the man who also has hosted the IBHOF’s Induction Weekend since 2016, just days after his close friend since his childhood Muhammad Ali died, and last year, I secured (with CompuBox’s permission) more outside work as a researcher.

Because of Doug Fischer’s confidence in my story-telling ability, I was able to become boxing’s “Travelin’ Man” and because of Smitty’s trust and tutelage – especially when it came to persuading me to join Facebook in 2009 and Twitter in 2021 – boxing fans have been able to see the face behind the words.

A significant part of my life in boxing has been experienced at the International Boxing Hall of Fame’s Induction Weekend, which I first heard about in a magazine article written by Ed Maloney in 1992. Even before I got to the end of the piece, I knew this was an event I needed to attend. When I traveled to my first event in 1993, I was a 28-year-old copyeditor at the Parkersburg News and Sentinel, and I was determined to create as many memories as possible during the only two days I could be there – Friday and Saturday. I did just that as I was enveloped by the “magic” about which IBHOF Executive Director Ed Brophy has spoken so often: Meeting the heroes I had only read about and watched videos of, establishing friendships with my fellow boxing nuts, and absorbing as many of the event’s sights and sounds as I could. Those memories were worth the trade-off of sleeping inside a cheap roach-infested trailer and the intense neck and back pain of an 11-hour drive home inside a car that lacked cruise control that resulted from my ignorance regarding the nature of securing hotel reservations. Because I had so easily booked a room in Erie, Pa. on a late Thursday night, I thought I could do the same as a walk-up on a late Saturday night. A very hard lesson was learned, and from that point on, securing rooms months in advance was at the top of my preparatory list.

So here I am, at age 59, about to embark on my 30thpilgrimage to Induction Weekend. In those years, my eyes have seen many changes. My friend and podcast partner Smitty has assumed the hosting role that used to belong to Joey Fiatto. According to some longtime attendees, The Three Pines restaurant on Peterboro Street has become the new after-hours gathering spot after Graziano’s was sold and razed. Events that had been staples – The VIP Cocktail inside the Greystone, the Friday night event inside the Rusty Rail, the golf tournament at Casolwood Golf Course – are no more, and, for the third consecutive event, the Induction Ceremony will be staged inside the Turning Stone Resort Casino instead of underneath the pavilion on the museum grounds. Perennial favorites Carmen Basilio, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Aaron Pryor, Alexis Arguello and Carlos Ortiz have passed on, and other past regulars such as Ruben Olivares no longer attend. Happily, the amazing Tony Graziano, the longtime owner of Graziano’s, is still with us – physically and cognitively – at age 102.

New celebrities such as Sebastian and Gabriela Fundora – the first brother-sister tandem to hold widely recognized world titles simultaneously – are establishing themselves as regular attendees, and the Hall has upgraded its social media presence by livestreaming the Induction Ceremony as well as its multi-media presentations with elaborate tribute videos devoted to the inductees. My own contributions to the event have expanded as well; in recent years I have provided some of the footage that has been used in these tribute videos while also writing articles for the program and coming up with the name of the “Trailblazer” category that honors the sport’s female pioneers. Last year I conducted a “Trivia with the Travelin’ Man” session on the pavilion’s stage Saturday afternoon, and I apparently performed that task well enough that I have been asked to perform my first Ringside Lecture at 2:30 p.m. Saturday. As of this writing, I am scheduled to interview the Fundora siblings, with the possibility of speaking with their father/trainer Freddy Fundora as well as with their promoter Sampson Lewkowicz. Because I have met all of them during my travels, I couldn’t have asked for a better lineup to kick-start this new venture.

Normally, one would become somewhat jaded about an event that they will be attending for the 30thtime, but, for me, IBHOF Induction Weekend remains fresh and worthy of anticipation. I still relish the drive from Friendly to Erie, Pa. and from Erie, Pa. to Canastota. I still look forward to reuniting with old friends and making new ones. I still appreciate the events I attend, the boxing-rich conversations I engage in wherever I go, and the autographs I sought then as well as the ones I am asked to sign now.

I am still astonished by how many people recognize me from my articles and my work on “In This Corner: The Podcast,” which has moved from FITE.TV toSmitty’s YouTube channel. In recent years, I’ve been told by fans, fellow media members and even a current Hall of Famer that one day I might be one of the people sitting on the stage waiting to receive a ring and deliver an acceptance speech. For me, that remains something that is too far away to seriously contemplate. If it happens, great, but if it doesn’t, I can leave this earth fully satisfied because my boxing life has already far exceeded my childhood dreams.

As for now, I am concentrating on nominating others for the Hall of Fame ballot as part of the Hall’s three-person screening committee on the men’s side and the four-person panel on the women’s side (A note: While I am able to put forward names, and while my opinion is greatly respected, I amnotthe final word as to who gets on the ballot nor is anyone else that I know of; that is more of a consensus effort on both sides).

If one can sum up my time on earth in just a few words, I must paraphrase the title from a legendary Christmas movie: “It’s (Been) a (Most) Wonderful Life.” And I am certainly looking forward to writing about the next chapters of it here on RingTV.com.

Tuesday, June 4:For the past several weeks, my main objective was to complete as much CompuBox-related research as possible before taking my annual six-day vacation. Looking at the June work schedule e-mailed to me by CompuBox president (and, in my opinion, a worthy future Hall of Famer) Bob Canobbio, my quest was to finish all work through the June 21 ESPN card topped by Rafael Espinoza’s WBO featherweight title defense against Sergio Chirino Sanchez because, by doing so, I’d return home retaining my preferred buffer between what I had done and the cards that lie ahead. In order to do that, however, I had to shift into overdrive, and that often required me to burn the midnight oil – quite literally.

Between June 1-3, I completed six research punch counts totaling 68 rounds, assembled statistical packages for five matches, and wrote four analyses totaling 11,042 words. Yes, it’s been a year since I’ve posted anything on RingTV.com, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been an active boxing writer, for these analyses (which are only seen by our client companies’ broadcasters and producers) are far more than a mere recitation of statistics. I write them as if they are feature stories with numbers and stylistic observations that shape my prediction at the end. To date, I have written 63 CompuBox analyses in 2024 (including for bouts that were subsequently scrubbed for one reason or another), and, so far, I have been right far more often than I’ve been wrong. After all, while I can only make an informed prediction, it is the fighters who will rightly have the final say – at least most of the time.

I achieved my goal at 5:30 p.m. yesterday, and I spent the remainder of the evening – and the majority of this morning -- preparing for my departure, which took place at precisely 1:30 p.m. under partly sunny skies and a temperature in the mid-80s. I had several stops to make; the post office to send off my dreaded second-quarter estimated taxes, to a gas station to fill up my car’s tank, and to Wal-Mart to purchase a new clipboard that I will be using during my Ringside Lecture. Despite these stops, I still arrived at my hotel in Erie 4 hours 38 minutes after I left because traffic was smooth and the road construction detours resulted in no delays.

After checking into my second-floor room and alerting several people of my successful arrival, I drove to a nearby Pilot outlet and purchased a foot-long Subway Club split into six-inch sandwiches (one for my dinner, the other for a late-morning snack), a bag of Lays chips and a sugar-free, calorie-free soda, all of which hit the spot.

I spent most of the evening relaxing, but at 11 p.m. I felt the need to get back to work. I had originally intended to start writing the following morning and leave the hotel around 10 a.m., but the same drive that prompted me to get so far ahead on my CompuBox responsibilities motivated me to sit in front of my laptop and see what words and ideas would emerge. Much of what you have read so far was what came out, and, at 1:55 a.m., I figured I reached a good stopping point.

With that, I decided to call it a night – or, technically speaking, an early morning, and I began the process of winding down. Because of the energy level I had in writing these words, I suspected it would take a long time for me to finally fall asleep.

Wednesday, June 5:I was right: It wasn’t until sometime after 3 a.m. that I managed to drift off, and, as usual, I got out of bed just a few hours later – 7 a.m. to be exact. The sunny sky I encountered upon arriving in Erie last night was replaced by a grey one and it was accompanied by a wind that suggested unsettled weather was on the horizon. I spent the next hour polishing my copy for the first of what will be several times before submitting it to Doug Fischer and his merry band of editors at RingTV.com.

Thanks to my work from the night before, I was able to leave Erie well ahead of my intended departure time of 10 a.m. (I hit the I-90 East ramp at 9:12 a.m., to be exact). The first sprinkles of rain were falling when I placed my luggage in the front seat and trunk of my car, but as the miles flew by the weather steadily improved in terms of precipitation but also elevated in terms of temperature. The trip was mostly smooth; the only interruption was briefly caused by a forced one-lane bottleneck one mile away from Exit 37 on I-90, and the sole moment of strangeness occurred when the 18-wheeler just ahead of me suffered a flat that sent rubber all over the road. It was a “but by the grace of God go I” moment because had that truck not been there, I might have been the one who would have gotten the flat.

I pulled into the Days Inn parking lot at 1:11 p.m., and after letting everyone know I was safe and sound, I checked into my room (which, thankfully, was on the first floor), then spent several minutes talking with Doug Joslyn (the man who checked me in) about all matters baseball since he is a self-described big Yankees fan. We were in the midst of discussing the hypocrisy of Major League Baseball issuing a lifetime ban to San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano for gambling on baseball at the same time the league was deeply imbedded with major gaming sites when Smitty walked in and gave us a hearty hello. Doug and I broke away when a couple of check-ins walked in the door, and after settling in, I texted Jeff Brophy to see when it would be OK to stop by.

“We’re here all day,” he replied. “Stop by.”

A few minutes later, I stopped by the museum as well as the gift shop to say hi to Ed, Jeff and the rest of the crew. Smitty informed me that Jeff wanted to invite me to a private dinner inside the Turning Stone that is usually held the day before the Induction Weekend Kick-Off. When I texted Smitty if I needed to change clothes from the t-shirt and sweats I was wearing and he replied with one of the most terrifying words in the lexicon to me: “Tuxedo.” Of course, he was kidding (he texted as much when I replied “no go” with a smiley-face icon), but you never know with him because he loves to throw me curveballs to see how I would react.

I exited the gift shop with two new IBHOF T-shirts – I could never have enough of them – then returned to my room to settle in, rest up, and freshen up. In an effort to look somewhat more presentable, I put on a new pair of jeans, wore a fresh pair of sneakers, and shaved away the two days of stubble. As for the rest of me, there was no time to recruit a plastic surgeon or a strength and conditioning coach.

By the way, I have maintained the treadmill program I started in November 2021, and, as of now, my total has exceeded 1.7 million steps. I look better, I feel better, and I intend to keep it going for as long as possible.

At 6 p.m. I departed for the Turning Stone and was on the property a half hour later. Jeff Brophy led me to the third-floor room where the private dinner was being held, and while the bratwurst with peppers and onions was quite good, the main course for me was the extended conversation I had with Eric “Butterbean” Esch, whosehas been nothing short of astonishing.

The “King of the Four Rounders,” now 58, told me he had hit rock bottom and was relegated to a wheelchair, but these days he weighs 280 pounds – his lightest poundage in decades -- and he feels better than ever thanks to his having undergone two hip replacements. The joy in his eyes and the verve in his voice was unmistakable, and his story is just one of the many triumphs achieved by Page and his program.

Before departing for Canastota, Smitty and I chatted briefly in his nearby room, and during the visit he showed off his closet that was stocked with dozens of color-coordinated sports coats, pants and shoes. And I thought that my bringing three pair of footwear was worthy of note.

I returned to my room shortly before 10 p.m., and spent the remainder of the evening (and some time following the midnight hour) relaxing and reviewing my work. This year’s preamble has not disappointed, and I can’t wait to see what happens over the next four days.

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